Northern railways to start special train to meet New Year and Christmas rush

In wake of New Year and Christmas, northern railways decided to put up special trains on Kalka-Shimla world heritage track to meet the rise of tourists in advance booking and cut down the waiting lists.

A spokesman of northern railways told that to attract more tourists to this hill queen it would soon add more trains to its additional fleets of trains on heritage roads as Christmas and New Year witness sudden increase of tourists footfall every year.

The special train would depart from Kalka to Shimla in the morning hours and down in the afternoon, the schedule of which would announced soon.

The decisions have been taken by the railways due to swelling up of waiting lists, forcing it to put additional trains on this route as number of tourists from the neighboring states move towards this capital town to enjoy Christmas and New Year holidays.

In the beginning, special duplicate shivalik express toy trains would be started on the track and it would be replicated further keeping the increase of rush of tourists on the route.

Northern railways Kalka station Superintendent Vinay Kumar accepted that they were witnessing increase of booking for this route which was also becoming popular after declaring this track as world heritage. But most of the people prefer land routes to arrive here instead of air and rail means of transport.

People like this rail line having length of 95 mm (60 miles) as it rise us by 1544 m down the line connecting Kalka at the height of 656 meter from sea level to Shimla at 2076 meter. The Raj day track was built in 1903 crossing 102 tunnels, 700 turns and 800 odds bridges amid lush green forest, valleys and dales.